My Sister's Tree Decs

Here are some pics of the finished Christmas Tree decorations I made for my sister this Christmas..... I am really pleased with the finished product, and I believe Sam is to! The embedments are seed beads and sequins, they look seriously cute on her silver tree.

I have a few more Christmas handmade decorations I would like to show you, some sequin baubles, some more resin stars of different colours and some needle felted decs (pud and cupcakes). I love the sequin pudding, its my fave and its huge, looks great on the tree.

Merry Christmas to all, hope its filled with joy and family and lots of Christmas goodies. xxx

What have you been doing?

Really? What have you been up to? Well I have been keeping myself very busy indeed..

As you will see, Im very good at starting the jobs, just not so great at completion. Here is a great example of how i LOVE to get a new craft piece underway!

The budgies here are made from felted wool, i love them, my fave is the green one, but they still need another friend).

Next is my finished stray sock alien (made for mummy) and his friend (the dancing, faceless, cat). I love these comfy cosy friends, so cute and really quick and easy to make!

I say quick and easy, but i still have this cute cat without a face (ah poor puss)!

And then this weekend I received a parcel from my wonderful sister, which was full of wool, a project bag and some stitch markers and how could I just put them to one side - it was not possible! So i went ahead and decided to start a new knitting project......

The wool is Rowan Spray and the pattern is from Rowan's Urban Streets and is called Sassy! Its a big poncho type sweater (great to throw on in this chilly weather)!

And finally, the resin creations :-) All sorts of different pendants and decorations that i have covered again in another layer of resin to create the glass effect (hours of research spent looking into how to make these babies shine!)

The main stars in the middle are for my Sister's Christmas tree, so time is running out to get these sent to USA before the day we dress the tree (3rd Dec).....

This, you see, is the reason I never have time to blog!!! I dont know how I even find time to work (if only I could win the lottery). Ah well for now, at least I can dream about being able to make a million pounds with this lot, and give up work!

Dreams! :-)

New post... New stuff - at last!!

Here are a few things ive been working on recently - I know its been ages since my last blog (well between each and every blog) but i do have stuff to show for it...

Firstly my monster chunks.....

Here is Ingrid and Mabel (Mabel is the smaller sinister chunk), they are very friendly chunks, even if their teeth look hungry!

They are good friends with each other and love to just be with children and make them smile. They have gone to a new home now because they wanted to play with Claires' lovely girls called Summer and Skye!!

My next project to display is the new resin..

These are my juicy lips, I have these in many different colours. They are made of resin, with different sorts of embedments.

These will soon be made into different sorts of accessories (badges, pendants, bracelet charms, key fobs etc).. everyone needs a juicy pair of lips!

My little Ninja

This is Charlie in all his kit - gum shield an' all! He is hoping to go for his grading again soon, so must practise his side (heel first) kicks.

Nice casual pose Chas. xxx

Dad's gift....!

Here is the bag of goodies dad put together to help me with my resin craft..... Here we have some t-cut car colour restorer, brasso, glass fibre resin, some mini files, bottle tops, flat side (thingy) and something called chemico?!!???? well acutally I dont really know what its called... what it does or why anyone would ever have it - like many things I think he stores in his garage!!!!

Anything, from this century or perhaps the last 10 centuries, name it, and dad usually has it, or something like it, or something he can create in the garage to replicate it! Amazing really, stuff that money cant buy.... And altho I have still yet to find a use for these "handy" bits and pieces he has lent me and I am still smiling and totally grateful.

I think I have inherited that same creative gene, that can think up, recreate and build any item, with bits and pieces hoarded over the years - thanks dad!!!

The Badges....

This is the beginning of the final badge, after deciding on this final design I started the resin process. My initial idea was to make the Shaun The Sheep in "Shrinkles" using Sharpie pens, however the Sharpie pen ink seems to melt in the resin and the image becomes a blur. I then covered the newly shrunk Shaun pieces in pva.

These full Shaun pieces seemed to large and were too similar to each other, I wanted the badges to have different "personalities". I chopped up one of the shrunk Shaun pieces, but it just snapped. So then my idea was to make the Shaun pieces separate, head body and tail. That way I would be able to give them depth and also appear in the core of an apple, with depth but also their own personality!

So this is the first layer, each layer takes 48 hours (very impatient 48 hours!!) After drawing the Shaun pieces, colouring in, cutting out and then shrinking down. Finally covering in pva, drying and setting in the apple moulds.

See the top left, this cute individual badge is for my sister, the one with the ribbon. I thought his face was so cute. And the ribbon is a real ribbon set in the resin.

After 48 hours and the resin has dried, I am able to set the next piece in... the tails.

In this picture you can see where I am trying to give the Shaun's their personality. Heads and tails need placing. Tails are the next level. Just trying to get a feel for each badge.

Place the pva covered tails and leave to set for another 48 hours.

However, some of the tails floated slightly and some of the ink from the tails spread slightly (imperfections otherwise known as Jacqui-isms).... I still love them tho, and as we all know, all sheep are not perfect in form!

The best bit next.... Heads up!!! (ooh can you see the dismembered bodies in the background)!!

Just need to pop these beauties out, sand their edges, buff and attach the pins, jobs a good one... hoping you love them Sam, i love you. xxx

Mum's birthday and first BBQ of the year....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM

On April 22nd it was Mum's birthday, so I baked a cake. This one was an apple and carrot cake coated in cream cheese icing, hundreds and thousands and silver balls...... yum yum. Mum looks pleased with the result!

We had a lovely dinner and the day after, Dad took mum out for (romantic) meal.... Good times.

The 19th May was the event we had all been waiting for........ The first barbeque of 2009 - at last I hear you cry... the sun made a special appearance in grey UK, so I popped to the local shops and bought as many meat products as they could supply, invited the folks round and had a great time!

Baz and Clare, Mum and Dad, Stephen and of course Chas, were present. A funtime was had by all, many more this summer, we're hoping for.